


I Really Need A Translator

by FriendshipCastle



Series: Volleydorks [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Minor Injuries, Social Anxiety, Swearing, Trans Character, volleyball is the most important thing ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:11:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2313992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My anime bud chucked me into the volleyball anime fandom and I am officially lost to these boys and their boundless enthusiasm for volleyball.  I’m mad because I can barely ship them, they love volleyball to the exclusion of everything.  But whatever, here’s a bunch of relationship headcanons disguised as fics.</p><p>In this one, Hinata breaks his wrist and Kags is in charge of him because he can't be trusted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hinata swung himself onto the branch and looked out, a hand shading his eyes as he squinted into the sunset. “It’s really pretty up here, you know.”

“I have the ball,” Kageyama said. “You can come down now.”

With his teeth sinking into his bottom lip, Hinata tucked his feet under him and stood up. He steadied himself against the tree’s trunk with one hand and held on to a branch above his head with the other. “But you can see the sun going behind the mountains and it’s cloudy today so everything looks like a berry smoothie.”

“What?”

“Smoothie!” Hinata yelled, and Kageyama winced.

“I heard you! Come on, you said you wanted to practice outside—”

“I love spring!” Hinata yelled. “And smoothie-colored sunsets!”

“Stop shouting!”

“Make me!” Hinata said and continued peering around. He looked like a pirate, staring at the horizon with wonder. A very small, ginger pirate in sweatpants and a sweatshirt; just because it was spring didn’t mean it was warm yet.

Kageyama tossed the volleyball that _he_ had retrieved from the tree from one hand to the other. “Just because you’re short doesn’t mean you have to get so weird when you have the chance to be tall.”

Hinata glared down at him. “Just because you’re tall all the time doesn’t mean you have to get so— You don’t have to be— You’re a jerk! Jerkface!” He raised his middle finger and stuck his tongue out.

“You need to stop hanging out with Tanaka if he’s going to teach you things like that,” Kageyama snapped. He immediately felt like a prudish idiot but he kept his glare going and tried to ignore the fact that he’d just told Hinata off for making a rude gesture. They were _peers_ , Kageyama wasn’t his goddamn _mother_.

Hinata made a fist instead of the bird. “Tanaka’s cool and you suck!” 

Kageyama snorted. “You want to be like Tanaka? The guy who’s trying to learn guitar to impress girls? The guy who slept through all of his classes yesterday because he stayed up trying to write love poems that he made Suga double-check for both emotion and grammar? _That’s_ who you want to emulate?”

“Your words are dumb!”

“You’re dumb!”

Hinata tried to flip him off with both hands but wobbled and had to steady himself onto the branches above his head. “Woah! Shut up, I don’t want to fall!”

“Yeah, but no way you’d fall,” Kageyama said sarcastically. “You’re one of the big crows, just like _Tanaka-senpai_ , and you’d just fly off.”

A breeze blew up and mussed Hinata’s already disheveled hair. He really did look like some kind of bird, perched in the tree with his sharp little nose and ruffled ginger catastrophe of a haircut, his face pinched and pissed off. “Maybe I would!”

“Sure, test it,” Kageyama said. “I dare you.” He turned away. He tossed the ball for himself (correcting for wind speed, or course, so he wouldn’t have to reach for it and look like even more of an idiot). Then he heard a thud. Then he heard Hinata start screaming.

The volleyball hit the grass and gently rolled a ways away, into the bushes around the football field. No one was there to catch it.

 

 

Kageyama sat up straight in the chair in the emergency room when Hinata’s mother and sister busted through the automatic doors, immediately recognizable by their red hair. 

“Hello!” he said to Hinata’s mother. His voice was too loud but the words were out and he glared instead of taking them back. Then he remembered that technically, he’d severely injured her son. He tried to take back the glare and look chagrined, but even though he knew what the word meant, he wasn’t entirely positive that he had the expression right.

She wasn’t even looking at him. She’d gone directly to the front desk. “Sorry, someone called and said my son was here? Hinata Shoyou?”

The nurse nodded as she looked through her list. “Yes, he’s waiting for the doctor at the moment, it looks like. You can wait here for a moment and I’ll let them know you’ve arrived. You can go back to see him then. He’s doing fine but you should probably talk to him before he goes in.” She looked up and her eyes narrowed as she locked on to Kageyama. He swallowed hard as she pointed at him. “There’s the kid who came in with him.”

Ms. Hinata and her daughter both looked back at him. Actually, everyone had been looking at him for a while now, ever since he had yelled hello. Kageyama focused on the floor. It was cold in the waiting room. He’d given up his sweatshirt when Hinata went into shock and now he wished he had it. But that was probably bad, because treatment for shock was more important than being comfortable in waiting rooms. Kageyama rubbed his hands together to keep them warm and tried not to wince when he heard Ms. Hinata’s shoes click and her daughter’s sneakers squeak on the linoleum as they came towards him.

“Hello?” she said. “You go to school with Shoyou, don’t you? You’re on his team in volleyball.”

“Yes,” Kageyama said. This time, his voice was too quiet, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, we’re both first-years and we joined Karasuno’s volleyball team at the same time.”

“What’s your name?” she said. She was smiling at him. He’d forgotten to introduce himself.

“Kageyama. Tobio.”

“What happened, Kageyama?’

Kageyama aimed his glare at the floor and said, “Hinata jumped out of a tree because I dared him to and he broke his left arm and sprained his ankle and went into shock but the ambulance was fast so we made it here very quickly and he’s fine now except for the break and the sprain but they won’t let me in because I told them what happened and they think I did it on purpose but I didn’t. I promise.”

A fat little hand slammed into the area just below his kneecap. Kageyama jerked and yelped at the pain, then swatted away the next attack from what looked like a rounder, much smaller version of Hinata in a pink dress that clashed horribly with the ginger hair. Hinata’s little sister was glaring at him as hard as Hinata usually did. 

“Jerk!” she shouted.

“Natsu!” Ms. Hinata said, and scooped her daughter up. She wasn’t glaring when she looked at Kageyama. She was rolling her eyes. “Always trouble. I’m surprised that they haven’t given Hinata some kind of award at this point. Most Injured Player, maybe. That boy.” She sighed. “Thank you for being there, Kageyama.” Her eyes sharpened when she looked back at him, and he twitched. “Don’t mess with him again, though, got it?” 

He nodded furiously.

She patted him on the shoulder, smile back in place. “Good. And I expect you to be the one helping him out at school, okay? He’ll try to do everything one-handed and then he’ll lose all his books or break another bone or something, and I can’t afford more medical bills like these for a while.” She sighed again. “All right, I’ll go see the damage.” 

She stood up and Kageyama stood up with her, unsure of what to do. A nurse was holding the double doors open and checking the time impatiently on his watch. Kageyama decided bowing was a good idea. A heartfelt apology would just take too much time.

“Kageyama?” she said.

“Yes?” he said, his head still down.

“How long have you been here? Waiting, I mean.”

He darted a look at the clock. “An hour and thirty-eight minutes.”

“I don’t know how long this will take,” she said. “You should go home, okay? Your parents are probably worried. Have you called them?”

“Um, no.”

“You should try and get a ride. It’s dark out. Do you live far?”

Kageyama slowly straightened up. “A mile or two.”

“All right, well you get yourself home safely,” Ms. Hinata said. “I’ll see you later, and I’m sure Shoyou will tell you at school how all of this goes.” She nodded at him and turned away, following the nurse. Over her shoulder, Natsu continued to glare at Kageyama. 

He stood around for a moment more, trying to think of something else he could do. There wasn’t a thing he could come up with, though, so he left.

 

 

Hinata was at school the next day. In fact, he was at volleyball practice that morning, in a cast that was white and clean and covered him from palm to mid-forearm. He was negotiating a crutch under his good arm, too, with limited success. Suga hovered beside him, gently righting him whenever he teetered too far in one direction or the other. Kageyama joined the cluster around Hinata at the beginning of practice but stayed in the back and stayed silent. He didn’t really know what to say, frankly. There wasn’t a lot he could think of except admitting that he had played a part in this.

“I tried to fly!” Hinata said before anyone could ask. “It was a super nice sunset and the wind went by like ‘Shhhhhaaah’ and I felt pretty light, you know?”

“You _are_ pretty light,” Tsukishima said, “since you’re about three feet tall.”

Tanaka bopped Tsukishima on the back of the head and said, “And then what happened?”

“I jumped!” Hinata said. “And I didn't fly, I fell. And then I went to the hospital. And I can’t practice for the rest of the season because I broke my wrist—” he waved his left hand around as proof— “and sprained my ankle—” Suga caught him as he tried to waggle his leg and overbalanced— “so I have to just sit on the bench. But I can cheer you on!”

“Well, we don’t have any games coming up before next season starts,” Daichi said. He looked around, his gaze lingering on the third years, who should probably have been studying or working on their college plans. “We’re mostly just here to stay in peak physical condition… I don’t think you have to worry too much about missing out on volleyball glory. We’ll miss your spikes, of course, but the team can make do until you’re cleared to play.”

“Awesome!” Hinata said. “I might have to miss early practices though. My mom has to drop me off before she goes to work since I can’t ride my bike anymore.”

“What time are you dropped off?” Suga asked, pushing Hinata back to center as he started falling to the left.

“Oh, just before eight. Mom works in the town so it’s not too far out of her way to bring me, but she doesn’t go early. She brought me today because I asked her to and she’s still kind of worried about me, but it’s not going to happen again.” Hinata tried to shrug and Suga had to push him back upright. 

“Well, we’ll miss your enthusiasm,” Daichi said. “I suppose we’ll just have to ask Tanaka and Noya to pick up the slack in team spirit while you’re out.”

Everyone else was laughing and asking if they could sign Hinata’s cast (except Tsukishima, who fidgeted with his glasses and looked bored). Kageyama hung back and avoided looking at Hinata in case Hinata saw him. 

Hinata hadn’t mentioned that Kageyama was even there.

He also hadn’t brought back Kageyama’s volleyball sweatshirt.

During practice, Kageyama tossed for other people and received serves and spiked balls and ran laps. He passed Hinata often, sitting on the sidelines. He was still working on what to say to Hinata, though, so he stayed quiet and kept his head down. It worked up until he was putting on his bag and slipping on his street shoes to walk to the school building.

“Hey, Kageyama!” Hinata called. He was hauling himself over like some kind of wind-up toy in overdrive, his bad foot nearly touching down before his momentum would launch him forward again. Suga hovered in the background with a nervous smile and a watchful look in his eyes.

“Yes?” Kageyama said.

“Mom said she put you in charge of me,” Hinata said, pulling up next to him. The crutch forced his shoulder up next to his ear. It was on the lowest setting and yet it was still to big for him. His bag was in the way, too, sliding around to tangle with his legs when he tried to get moving fast. Because it was Hinata, he was probably always trying to go fast.

“Yes,” Kageyama said. “She said that. I don’t know what she meant by it, though. Do you need help with something?”

Hinata glared. “No! I’m fine!”

“She said you’d say that.”

“Yeah! Well—”

“Why even bring it up if you don’t actually want help?”

Hinata looked away. “I dunno.”

They stood there for a moment, Kageyama thinking carefully of what he should do. He wasn’t going to carry his classmate around, that was for sure. Perhaps he could pick up homework for him? Carry his lunch? Actually, carrying his school bag would be a good start. Kageyama reached over and steadied Hinata’s crutch, held him still as he squawked, and tugged the strap over his head. He draped it over his own head, let go of Hinata, and started walking.

“Your class is on the second floor, right next to mine. We should go quickly. It’ll take you a while to navigate the stairs.”

“You— Why— I don’t need— Wait up! Hey! Kageyama, not so fast!”

Kageyama felt a slow smirk beginning at the corners of his mouth. He swallowed it before Hinata caught up to him, and argued with him about how much help Hinata needed throughout the day. When they traded their shoes out for indoor slip-ons, Kageyama managed to get Hinata to agree that he could put the left shoe on for him, since he couldn’t step into it on a sprained ankle and couldn’t pull it on with a broken wrist. Kageyama almost got kicked in the head trying to get the shoe on while Hinata wailed that he was ticklish and also that his ankle hurt every time he waved his leg around.

“Stop moving, moron!” Kageyama finally snapped. “I can put your shoe on if you just stop trying to hit me! Sit still!”

“You’re a jerk,” Hinata said. “I’m _injured_ and you’re yelling at me and I feel like—”

“There.” Kageyama stood up. “It’s on. Let’s go to class.”

“Wait, really?” Hinata looked down at his foot like he couldn’t believe it existed.

Kageyama glared down at him. “Yes. Stand up. We’ll be late.”

“I’m an invalid, they’ll forgive me,” Hinata grumbled as he dragged himself up on his crutch. “You’re gonna be in trouble though because Tanaka says you have resting bitchface and the teachers—”

“He says _what_?” Kageyama snarled.

“Nothing! Uh, you must have misheard!”

Kageyama rubbed his eyes and sighed. A headache was brewing. He’d need a juice box before, during, and after lunch at this rate.

 

 

“Tanaka. You said I have resting bitchface,” Kageyama said the next morning as the team changed for practice in the locker room.

Tanaka looked up from where he was carefully doodling hearts on his new notebook, eyebrows drawn in confusion. “Yeah, you do.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“What? No way!” Tanaka stood up fast and rubbed his shaved head nervously. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s just a fact. It sounds mean when you say it though, I can see why you’d be pissed. I’m sorry.”

“Insulting the first years?” Daichi said from the other side of the room.

“I’m apologizing!” Tanaka wailed. “I didn’t mean it like that, I swear! Oh man, Kageyama, I’m so friggin sorry.”

“What does it mean?” Kageyama said. He heard Daichi snort from where he was still lacing up his shoes.

Tanaka blinked. “Uh. It means your neutral expression looks kinda pissed all the time.”

“Oh.” Kageyama nodded thoughtfully. He hiked his sweatpants up over his shorts and started lacing up his own sneakers.

“Are… Are you still mad?”

“No. I just didn’t know what it meant.”

Daichi slapped Tanaka on the back. “You got off easy. Don’t be saying unkind things about your teammates though, got it?”

“And stop teaching Hinata to swear,” Kageyama added. “And stop teaching him rude hand gestures.”

Tanaka swallowed hard under Daichi’s suddenly frozen expression. “Oh, jeez.”

Kageyama straightened up, adjusted his binder so he could breathe more freely, pulled on his shirt (Hinata hadn’t brought up the sweatshirt and Kageyama was starting to worry that it had been lost at the hospital) and left the locker room for a quick jog around campus before they started drills. He heard Daichi’s dark, furious voice start in on Tanaka before the locker room doors shut and he couldn’t suppress a small grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, I write my notes as I edit and they are purely for my own amusement/to remind me that I make way too many secret references. They are so not important to the story unless you want a little insight into how my brain works when I write.
> 
>  
> 
> Tanaka is, to quote comedian Mike Birbiglia, the guitar guy at the party, and we all know why he’s really here; to sleep with your girlfriend.
> 
> When I say they were practicing next to the ‘football field,’ Americans, I mean ‘soccer field.’ Just. Clarifying there. We are the only folks who call it soccer so far as I know.
> 
> Oh no I accidentally quoted Sonic jokes from the Internet. Damn these memes. Now I can picture Hinata as Sonic and it’s terrifying.
> 
> I don’t know if the shoes you wear inside in Japan have a particular name so they’re just ‘inside shoes.’
> 
> I don’t know why Kageyama drinks so many juice boxes but I think it’s adorable and silly.
> 
> They have that weird sports closet where I think everyone changes in the anime but I call it a locker room here. Picture it however you want. I’m smashing up American and Japanese norms, I suck.
> 
> Don’t exercise in serious binders, kids, it is not safe for your lungs and your rib shape and all that business. I did research on this. You can pass out from lack of oxygen if you aren’t careful. Volleyball is actually mellow enough that you can get away with playing it in binders, but no hardcore cardio. Kags would do layered sports bras or a less-intense binder when he’s going on a run because he is a smart cookie.


	2. Chapter 2

Kageyama and Hinata had their routine down now. After morning volleyball practice, Kageyama would change quickly, put on more deodorant (no time to shower and no inclination to do so in a public place), and jog to the front of the school where Ms. Hinata had dropped off her son and he had, invariably, fallen over onto the grass. Kageyama would pick him up, pull leaves out of his hair, carry his book bag, help him on with his school shoes, make sure he didn’t fall down the stairs, settle Hinata into his seat, and make it to his own classroom just as the bell rang. It was a tight schedule. 

Lunch was easier, since Kageyama would just bring his lunch to Hinata’s classroom and talk about volleyball for the forty-five minutes they had as a break. Sometimes they didn’t talk about volleyball, though. Hinata was actually atrocious at math and Kageyama had some difficulties understanding the more intricate metaphors in poetry (“They’re always about love, Kageyama, how do you not know this already?” “Even this one by Basho, it’s about love?” “….Uh, yeah. Yeah, it says it’s about traveling but it’s really about how much he _loves_ traveling, got it?”). 

After school had let out for the day, Kageyama would help collect all of Hinata’s scattered items and books, guard him down the stairs, get him out of his school shoes and into his street shoes, and then wait with him until Ms. Hinata came to pick him up. This timing was more leisurely because Ms. Hinata didn’t get off work until an hour and a half after school. Sometimes they would sit and do homework in Hinata’s classroom until it was closer to the time Hinata was going to be picked up. Suga often joined them, smiling widely and sometimes bearing cookies. He was a useful resource since he was a third-year and had already taken their classes (“What are you talking about? Basho isn’t love poetry.” “I _told_ you, Hinata!” “What? No! That’s just your opinion! Even if it’s two people’s opinion, it’s still _wrong_.”).

When his aunt dropped by on Wednesday to see him, Kageyama didn’t tell her about the fact that he’d made friends. He did talk to her about volleyball until she explained that she had to make dinner and didn’t want to be distracted by his “thrilling stories about tournaments and spikes and sets and such.” He went to his room and tossed for himself for a while, laying on his back on his bed. He ate with his aunt and father and mother, when both his parents came home from work. They talked about their jobs. Kageyama ate quietly and went straight to bed. He’d wake up early to go for a run, then do it all over again.

The team held a few practices on weekends. Hinata was always there. His mother dropped him off and picked him up, her smile tired but undaunted. Kageyama was quietly surprised that she drove her son around even on weekends. His mother had made it clear very early that if he wanted to do anything outside of school, he would have to find a way to transport himself. Hinata was lucky in this. He was loud and gave horrible advice. The team learned to tune him out. Kageyama found his attention wandering to the sidelines when Hinata was there. It felt disturbing to be playing volleyball and have his spiker so far away. It was easier in the mornings, when volleyball practice was a bit quieter and a lot less exciting, and Kageyama’s schedule began again.

It got even easier when Hinata didn’t need his crutch anymore, though at first it was stressful not knowing how this would change things. Kageyama was unsure what the new schedule would be when Hinata showed up, limping only slightly, but Hinata just chatted with him like always and said, “See you at lunch!” when he entered his own classroom. And he still couldn’t ride his bike on his mother’s orders, so Suga and Kageyama waited with him after school and did homework together like always. 

It was nice to have people who followed a system “just like always.” It felt safe that way.

 

 

Ms. Hinata was there waiting when Kageyama rounded the school building one morning. He slowed down to a walk and glanced between her and her son. Hinata was grinning hugely, almost bouncing in place, his hair vibrating with energy. 

“Kageyama!” he yelled.

“What,” Kageyama said, slowing down even more.

“I get my cast off today!”

Kageyama nodded. “It’s been a month.”

“And I’ve been walking on my ankle for the past week and it only hurts sometimes!”

“It shouldn’t hurt at all, Shoyou,” Ms. Hinata said, tugging on her son’s hair and smiling tiredly.

“It’s not bad, Ma,” Hinata said, swatting at her hand. “I’m definitely going to get to a hundred and ten percent soon! And then we can play volleyball again! And we’ll be second years—”

“Anyway, Kageyama, I wanted to thank you for looking after Shoyou this whole time,” Ms. Hinata said. She was smiling at him now. Kageyama decided that bowing was probably a decent idea, so he did.

“Can I ask you for one more favor,” Ms. Hinata said while he was still trying to figure out how deeply he should drop down.

Kageyama straightened up. “Yes.”

“Do you have plans tonight? Before six or so?”

Kageyama shook his head.

“Would you mind watching Natsu for me? Just while I’m at Shoyou’s appointment? Her daycare lets out about an hour after your school does and if you could just walk her home and feed her a snack and make sure she doesn’t break her wrist or set the house on fire or something else while we’re getting Hinata’s cast off, it would be a big weight off my mind.”

“You want me to babysit?” Kageyama said blankly.

“If you don’t mind. I could pay you for your trouble if you—”

“That’s not necessary. I can do it. Where’s her daycare?”

Ms. Hinata smiled gratefully. “It’s a bit far. I can drive you there after school, though she gets out a bit later than you. And we live a few blocks down and to the right. Natsu knows where we live. Thank you very much, Kageyama. I would have called but Shoyou doesn’t have your number. You have been so helpful in this. I’m glad Shoyou has you for a friend.”  
Kageyama decided bowing was a good idea again. It was the most polite thing to do in any situation, so why not.

“So formal!” Ms. Hinata laughed. She kissed her son on the head and waved to them both as she drove off.

“Why does your mother think I’d be a good babysitter?” Kageyama asked Hinata as they walked into school.

Hinata shrugged. “You’re just there to be there. I think she knows Natsu’ll freak out if she has to sit and wait for me to get this off.” He waved his cast-clad hand. It was grimy and still covered in signatures and small pictures. Kageyama could see at least three volleyballs of varying quality drawn on there and a few crows, equally varied.

“You’ll be able to train with us this summer,” Kageyama said.

“Like I said, gotta be a hundred and ten percent!” Hinata grinned, eyes shut in bliss. “We’ll be second-years and it’ll be great. Ahhhh I can’t wait to hit the ball again. You’re sets are the best thing ever.”

“I know.”

Hinata stuck his tongue out. “So humble!”

Kageyama pulled on his shoes, unwilling to comment. He knew he wasn’t humble. He was good at what he did, that was all that mattered. As long as he didn’t brag about it, no one cared what he thought of himself. Karasuno had really been the best choice for volleyball, even if no one was up to his own caliber. He’d learned a lot here. He’d learned that one person couldn’t be the whole team. It had been difficult, practicing without Hinata for the past month. It was almost summer and practices would be more scattered soon. Routine would start collapsing. Hinata would start improving, though. There was a balance to be struck there. Kageyama could trust that Hinata would get better as fast as he could and then try to get even better than before. That was nice.

“Don’t let her bully you, kay?” Hinata said at the door to his classroom.

“Hm?”

“Natsu. She’s bossy. Do what she says unless you want a tantrum, but don’t let her be too mean.” Hinata’s serious face dissolved into a cheerful smile and a wave. “See you at lunch!”

“Yes,” Kageyama said, but Hinata was already heading to his seat.

 

 

“Kageyama!” Hinata had poked his head around the door to Kageyama’s classroom and was grinning widely. “ _I’m_ joining _you_ today!”

“Okay?” Kageyama said, slowly setting his lunch things back down on his desk. 

Hinata hopped up on a desk and fumbled with his lunchbox until Kageyama took it from him, opened it, and passed it back without comment.

“You never signed my cast!” Hinata said. He sounded horrified, as if he’d just realized this fact—which, actually, it seems he had. 

Kageyama stared at him blankly over the sandwich he’d made himself for lunch. “You never gave me back my sweatshirt,” was all he could come up with say in response.

Hinata rolled his eyes. “Casts are important though!”

“My sweatshirt is important!” Kageyama snapped.

Hinata blew through his lips like a horse and flapped his good hand. “Sweatshirts! Casts aren’t forever, you know!”

Kageyama sank his teeth into his sandwich with a bit more force than necessary. He was going to grind his teeth away to nothing if he didn’t stop talking to this shrimpy idiot.

“Sign my cast?” Hinata asked, holding out his bad hand. “Last-minute cast signing?”

Kageyama chewed and shook his head.

“Pleeeeeease? No one’s gonna see at this point, I’m a day away from getting it off.”

Kageyama rolled his eyes, swallowed, and dug in his bag for a pen. He took hold of the rough, stiff cast, searched for the only empty space, and then, trying not to think too much about it, drew a volleyball in a few quick strokes. He pressed his lips together and added a tiny crown on top of the volleyball, then capped the marker and nodded once. “Happy?”

Hinata was smiling at him. He looked like an orange sunflower when he smiled like that. He was so bright it was hard to look at him, and Kageyama glared down at his lunch quickly.

“Thanks!” Hinata said, and then he went off about training for next season and building back up his strength and getting really good at volleyball again and on and on. Kageyama tuned him out. He ate mechanically and tucked his leftovers away, then sat with his fingers sunk into his knees until the bell rang.

“See you after school!” Hinata said, slapping him twice on the shoulder as he jogged back to his own classroom.

Kageyama nodded once and tried to focus on class for the rest of the day. He took a quiz. He wasn’t sure what subject it was in. He couldn’t remember what it had asked him to know. He thought about bright orange sunflowers and wondered if they existed in real life, or if they were just something he’d made up. Was there a poem about orange sunflowers? Should there be? Would Basho have thought to write one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basho is a poet who wrote a bunch of haikus about his travels. I’d argue against Hinata here but a lot of poetry analysis comes down to a matter of opinion, so I might lose.
> 
> Headcanons about sleeping habits because I have no other reason to include them: Kags has a mouthguard because he grinds his teeth at night. He’s a big ol’ ball of stress. Hinata bikes the Tour du France in his sleep and has to wear a retainer because he had braces in middle school. If someone wants to draw awkward middle school years for the Kurasuno boys please let me know because I have a mighty need to see acne and headgear.
> 
> I have no friggin clue how long it takes to heal from a broken wrist or a sprained ankle. I broke my elbow but I was on drugs the entire time so I don’t remember the timeframe. Let’s say like a month or three weeks, though.
> 
> The scenario "Kags has to babysit Natsu" actually inspired all this. Thanks, anime buddy.


	3. Chapter 3

Ms. Hinata dropped Kageyama off in front of Natsu’s school. “She’s out in ten minutes, sorry you have to wait! We’ll be back in a couple hours. Thank you so much for doing this, Kageyama!” And then they were gone.

Kageyama tossed for himself for a while. He dug in his backpack for a couple of the books his was supposed to be reading for school, stared at them for a minute, then put them back. He pulled out his phone and played 2048 until he lost the first time, then he started flicking through the numbers he had in his address book.

Hinata’s was in there. Ms. Hinata had said her son didn’t have Kageyama’s phone number but everyone on the team had gotten a contact sheet. Why hadn’t Hinata called that? Maybe he’d lost the sheet. That sounded like something Hinata would do.

Suga texted him suddenly, asking if they were going to have ‘study group’ tomorrow (today had been cancelled for Hinata’s cast). Kageyama stared at the text for a while, then put his phone away without answering. He didn’t know what was going to happen.

Children poured out of the school with their parents and Kageyama jerked forward, looking for red hair. Natsu found him before he saw her, though, and she was suddenly beside him, tugging on his hand.

“Jerk!” she yelled.

Kageyama pulled back, then tried bowing a little to see if that was the right thing to do. “Hello, Natsu. I’m actually Kageyama.”

“You’re my _babysitter_ ,” she corrected him.

Kageyama decided not to fight this battle with a six year old. “Yes, I am.”

“I want a snack.”

“…Well, we can walk back to your house and get you a snack.”

“Okay.” She hung on to three of his fingers and started walking. She was short, so he had to bend down a little. She wasn’t letting go of his hand. Was this a normal thing for babysitters to suffer? The mothers he passed smiled at him in sympathy, so this was probably pretty standard. Natsu chatted about her day and about the storytime she’d had and how many snacks she managed to get her seat buddy to share with her because he was her boyfriend and therefore had to share his snack with her. Kageyama did what he always did with her brother and ignored everything coming out of her mouth. He sighed with relief when Natsu dragged him off the sidewalk and onto a lawn, aiming for the house’s front door. It must be her home. The Hinata household was small, with a scrubby front garden and Hinata’s dull grey bike upside-down on the front porch.

“My brother was fixing it,” Natsu explained. “It got flat. He’s gonna be able to ride himself to school now, so he can play ball with you again.”

“He can’t play,” Kageyama said. “He just got his cast off. Is getting his cast off. He still has to heal.”

Natsu stuck her tongue out in a very good imitation of her brother. “Momma told him that but he doesn’t care. He just likes to play.”

“Volleyball is the greatest sport ever, of course he loves to play,” Kageyama said.

“Boring,” Natsu said, unlocking the front door with a key around her neck. “Momma gave me this key because I’m more responsible than you.”

Kageyama knew it would be really, really bad if he injured anyone else in the Hinata family, so he quietly worked to suppress his rising frustration. He followed Natsu inside and said, “Volleyball is actually more interesting than laypeople realize. There is a great deal of strategy, particularly around the setter—”

“Do you like horses.” It wasn’t a question the way Natsu said it. It sounded more like she already knew what the answer was and it was a resounding ‘yes, I love horses.’

“No,” Kageyama said. He’d never met a horse. He didn’t know if he would like one if he saw it but he probably wouldn’t. Especially if Natsu liked them.

Natsu stared up at him in horror as she kicked her shoes off. “Yes, you do.”

“No,” Kageyama said firmly, “I don’t.” 

Natsu glared at him. “I don’t like you.”

“Okay.” Kageyama sat down to remove his shoes. “What do you want to eat?”

Natsu walked over and climbed onto his back, trying to unscrew his head. “You have to like horses!”

She was yanking really hard on his hair. Kageyama wasn’t sure how to deal with this. “No, I don’t!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

She slid off of him and suddenly started poking at his shoulders. “What’s this?”

Kageyama toed his shoes off and stood up quickly. “What do you mean?”

“What’s under there?” she said, trying to cram her head under his shirt. “What are you wearing?”

“A lot of layers,” Kageyama snapped. He should have kept his jacket on. It had been a nice day, though. He hadn’t thought twice about taking off his coat. He hadn’t expected a child to climb all over him and then ask questions about his binder.

“You get cold easily?”

“N—yes.”

Natsu squinted at him. “You sound funny. Your face looks pinchy and—”

“What would you like for a snack?”

 

 

Kageyama was squatting on the porch, idly spinning the front wheel of Hinata’s bike when Ms. Hinata and her son pulled up. He stood immediately and moved closer to the open door, where the sounds of a child imitating a horse’s whinny could be heard.

“Kageyama, Kageyama!” Hinata screamed, tumbling out of the car and nearly choking himself on his seatbelt. His mother sighed and parked the car, then moved around to disentangle him. He’d already twisted himself from the clutches of the seatbelt, though, and was dancing around his front yard, moving closer to Kageyama every time he spun around. His previously broken wrist was held in the air with triumph, scaly and thin but whole once more. “I’m _cured_!”

“You weren’t sick, idiot,” Kageyama hissed, trying to smile at Ms. Hinata at the same time.

Hinata twirled around Kageyama like it was a maypole festival. “I was dying on the inside because I couldn’t play volleyball!”

“Thank you, Kageyama,” Ms. Hinata said as she passed him. “I assume Natsu’s fine?”

“Yes!” Kageyama said quickly. She smiled at him over her shoulder and followed Natsu’s voice into the depths of her house.

“Was she annoying?” Hinata said, grinning.

Kageyama swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure how to phrase it, so he just blurted out, “I shut her in her room.” He glanced behind him but Ms. Hinata seemed not to have heard. That was good.

Hinata goggled. “You _what_?”

“I didn’t lock her in there but—she kept telling me to take my shirt off,” Kageyama said. He clamped his hands to his sides so he wouldn’t feel temped to cross his arms over his chest. “And I didn’t know if it was okay to have that conversation with her when she’s really young so I told her that her horses were in danger and then shut the door and came out here. But I fed her first. You don’t have any juice boxes.”

Hinata stopped moving. “Oh. Man, Kageyama, I’m sorry.”

Kageyama couldn’t—physically _could not_ —look at him, so he glared at the ground. “That’s stupid. You didn’t do anything.”

“I broke my wrist so you had to hang out with my little sister by yourself,” Hinata said. “And then she made you feel awkward because she’s an annoying little—”

“I broke your fucking wrist!” Kageyama burst out. “I did that! Why didn’t you tell anyone on the team? It was my fault! Why are you still being nice to me? I’m not a good— I don’t know how—” The words fell apart. Hinata had taken a step back. Kageyama took a breath and unclenched his hands. He swallowed and relaxed his jaw, then took another breath. He didn’t know what he wanted to say anymore. He didn’t know why Hinata bothered being nice to him, bothered apologizing for Kageyama fucking up. But there was no way Kageyama could phrase that so that it wouldn’t sound like the pleading he heard in his head every time he stood next to Hinata: _please don’t leave, please understand me, please don’t leave_.

“Come here,” Hinata said. “Just really quick.” He tugged lightly at the sleeve of Kageyama’s shirt, pulling him inside. Kageyama focused on Hinata’s wrist. It was the one that he’d broken. There were several small dots on it, scars where delicate surgeries had been performed. From the way Hinata held it, it seemed stiffer than usual. Because this was Hinata, he was probably ignoring it. They moved past Natsu’s room (where she was forcing her far-too-tolerant mother to play horses with her), into the chaotic tornado that was Hinata’s room.

“Your room smells,” Kageyama said. It didn’t smell like sweat as much as it probably did when Hinata was playing volleyball every day after school, but it was a boy’s room and it was slightly stale just like Kageyama’s. There was the strange, bright smell of heat on concrete, though, and Kageyama always wondered how Hinata managed to smell like something that specific (in addition to the sweat and the laundry detergent his mother used). It was nice to be surrounded by that scent.

“Sorry,” Hinata said, and let go of Kageyama’s sleeve to go digging under his bed. It took a moment for Kageyama to realize that what he’d said aloud could be considered rude. He frowned at himself. Fucking up again.

“I didn’t—” Kageyama tried to explain, though he had no idea how he can say ‘I meant to say that your room smells like you, which is my favorite smell in the world’ and not have things get more awkward. 

Hinata cut him off. “Here.”

He was holding out Kageyama’s sweatshirt.

“Thanks,” Kageyama said. This was probably the last thing he’d expected to happen. He took it in both hands and resisted the urge to smell it, to see if it still reeked of the absolute terror he’d felt when Hinata was shaking and falling asleep and possibly trying to _die_ from _shock_ right before his eyes.

“I kinda just… didn’t think,” Hinata said. He looked very small. He also looked solemn, staring at some point around Kageyama’s left shoulder as he added, “I mean, when I jumped. I keep replaying it because, you know, I wanted to play volleyball so. Um. So badly. But I don’t think I could have changed anything.” He blinked up at Kageyama. His expression was eerie, blank and distant. A ghost of a smile skimmed his mouth but didn’t touch his eyes. “You said jump and I did.”

Kageyama felt ill.

He must have looked terrible because Hinata’s eyes sharpened into horror and he waved his hands like he was warding off whatever Kageyama would say next (Kageyama had no idea what to say next). “Oh my god, it’s totally not your fault! I just don’t think about these things! I get it in my head that I’ll be fine and then I’m suddenly not, it’s not your fault you were a sarcastic asshole at the wrong time! Ah, _shit_ , I didn’t—”

Kageyama chucked his newly returned sweatshirt at Hinata’s head. It thwapped him in the face and muffled his shocked yelp. A sleeve wrapped all the way around his hand, effectively trapping him. Kageyama walked past him as he struggled to free himself. Kageyama walked past Natsu’s room, where Ms. Hinata called after him. Kageyama walked out of Hinata’s house without saying anything to anyone. 

Hinata had trusted him, just like he always trusted that the ball would be in place when he jumped to spike, and Kageyama had fucked it up.

 

 

Kageyama had his shirt already over his head as he kicked open the locker room door. He was feeling the rage of completely failing as a human being and he was ready to take out all that fury (which had kept him awake until the very early hours of morning) on the court. But when he pulled his shirt off, he found that Hinata was looking at the floor, leaning against Kageyama’s locker.

Of course. He could ride his bike to school again. Of course he’d come early for a volleyball practice he couldn’t attend. Of course he’d be the first one here, too. Kageyama kicked his shoes off and kept silent. Whenever he spoke he seemed to say the wrong thing anyway.

“You are a jerk,” Hinata said. He sounded like he was stating a fact. 

Kageyama stripped off his outer pants and pulled out the black volleyball shoes he’d bought himself for his last birthday.

“I don’t think you mean to be, though,” Hinata continued.

Kageyama paused.

“I think you just don’t have the best phrasing. Or timing.” Hinata laughed once, more a sigh than anything else. “I don’t know how to help you with that. I’m not so good at it myself. Do you want help?”

“Yes,” Kageyama said. He was surprised at how quickly he’s said it and how sincere he sounded. For once, it had come out just right.

Hinata looked up from the floor then. His smile wasn’t the big sunflower one but it was still bright. “That’s cool! Um.” He looked away again. “I still don’t know how to help.”

Kageyama thought. He stayed very still to signal that he was still thinking, and then said, “You could give me more chances.”

Hinata cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“You could, uh. Listen to me for longer? It takes me a while to put things the way I want them to be. Out loud, that is. It takes a few tries sometimes. It doesn’t come out right the first time. Like your room.”

“My room? What?”

Kageyama bit his lip but admitted, “I said it wrong, about your room. I said it smelled, but that has a negative connotation that I forgot about because— It doesn’t smell _bad_ , that’s what I mean. It was just the first observation I could make that wasn’t ‘your room is very messy,’ but it still didn’t sound polite.”

Hinata laughed a little. “Yeah, it didn’t. You like Hinata Room Smell, though?” He was grinning.

“Yes,” Kageyama said, because really, what else could he do?

“Oh.” Hinata looked a little pink around the ears, but he also looked pleased. “Thanks.”

Kageyama nodded. They were both smiling a little now. Kageyama pulled on his shoes and laced them up, then dug around in his bag for his exercise shirt.

“You smell kinda sweaty, usually,” Hinata said conversationally. “But I like it because I like you and I know it means you’re working really hard. Your sweatshirt smells _super_ nasty, though, so I brought it back. Again.” He dragged it out of his bag and tucked it with the rest of Kageyama’s things.

Kageyama considered Hinata’s statement. It wasn’t very kind, but it was also a kind of compliment. And Hinata had said that he liked him, which. Kageyama would think about that later. “Thank you.”

Hinata held a hand out, palm up. “Hi-five for communication, man!”

Kageyama grinned then. It was his fierce one, he could feel it. It looked ugly and cruel in every photo Kageyama had ever seen of himself but Hinata was grinning right back at him with no fear, his hand still outstretched. Kageyama slapped it hard.

“Low-five,” he corrected. Hinata chased him out of the locker room and all the way to the courts.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2048 is so addicting that it’s barely funny.
> 
> Hinata’s reaction to falling out of the tree is kind of based on mine every time I’ve been injured and also some babysitter classes I took in my teens. Yes, you can die from shock if it goes untreated. Kags did the right thing back there in that scene I refused to write because I love Hinata and he doesn’t deserve that shit from me.
> 
> Anyway, that's it for this fic. I have more little things I'll post about the other team members but none are this long. Look forward to more queer and/or platonic relationship shenanigans among these adorable dudes.


End file.
